Tag Archives: gun grabbers

Unreasonably warm temperatures (55° on 13, December) spawn tourist outbreaks along woodland trails. How does one differentiate tourists from regular hikers and mountain bikers? Voices as loud as their clothing, hands crammed with devices and radios, unleashed trail-poopers (dogs), and packs of even louder chubby fast-food wrapper spewing hotdog fingered kids for whom being chained to a hamster wheel for six months…without food, would be beneficial. People attend movies to laugh, cry, and escape reality if but for a short time. Conversations, seat-kickers, and cell phone glow can spoil the experience. In like fashion, nature is spoiled when rude civilization intrudes. Didn’t the Bush Administration argue the fight against Tourists was international? Didn’t they coin the term “GWOT” for “Global War On Tourism?” Recently I considered reporting a herd of Tourists to Homeland Security. None appeared menacing, not even their dogs, and some seemed friendly enough. But isn’t that what people say when told their neighbor ran over pedestrians with a truck or blew themselves up at the train station killing many people? I’m keeping an eye on them.

In Part I, I began exposing Michael Savage’s campaign to ban private ownership of certain firearms and magazines, in which he employed arguments perfectly useful…to Confiscationists. If I don’t like Savage, why listen to him? I don’t. I used to enjoy his wit and irreverent humor but his undisguised jealousy of conservative radio-talk show hosts and promotion of a Buddha-ized version of Judaism wore thin. His claim to be the only true radio conservative on the one hand, and assertion FDR’s socialist New Deal solved the Great Depression on the other, was the final straw. Anyone with a modicum of understanding with respect to economics, history, and the Constitution knows this is false. I listen when necessary because 2nd Amendment supporters must be prepared to answer its enemies. Las Vegas was the impetus for Savage’s first salvo against the right to keep and bear arms as the second was the Sutherland, Texas church shooting.

On 6 November, 2017 Savage resurrected with a vengeance his anti-2nd Amendment rant from the previous month yelling into the microphone; “Don’t tell me if everyone had a gun in that church they could have stopped the killer! You John Wayne types.” With a sneer he added, “And please don’t play John Wayne with me on this show. I’m going to hang up on you if you call and say if all those church-goers had had a gun, this wouldn’t have happened. Yeah, you John Wayne types. You’d freeze up, drop the gun, and shoot yourself in the foot if evil came into your church with an ‘assault rifle” (sic). He asked how the “shooter,”1 a nut, got a gun. “Why? Because gun laws are too weak” Savage continued. “Gun shows are wide open ranges and anyone can buy a gun there.” He mocked conservatives arguing more guns are the answer and pastors saying G_d is with us even in the midst of such tragedies. Savage insisted every “nut”2 in the nation can buy an AR15 because of “lax gun laws” and the killer was allowed to buy an “automatic rifle.” Although Savage conceded he was ultimately stopped by a man with a gun, “That was only after he had killed everyone” he said and then trotted out an argument near and dear to the hearts of liberals with respect to the 2nd Amendment; “People have a constitutional right to drive,” Savage argued, which comes with all sorts of regulations, licensing requirements, training, and tests to enjoy this “right” (sic). People have to “demonstrate” knowledge of how to operate the car and that they can drive before getting behind the wheel. Why isn’t this true with guns? Then he shouted; “Why is the right to own firearms one hundred percent free from licensing, but not the right to drive? All you tough guys who want ‘assault weapons’ (sic) say, ‘well that government will come down and get us. Let’s roll armed and go out like the militia.’ Yeah, all the tough guys on conservative radio are going to lead you. Onward Christian soldiers with their ‘assault weapons’ (sic). They’ll run so fast you wouldn’t be able to say Mickey Mouse.” Wow. During this diatribe Savage let out he has a concealed carry permit. How does one obtain a permit in radical Left-wing People’s Republic of Marin County of California’s Bay Area? You can’t unless you’re a rich celebrity or well-connected. But, Savage confessed, he’d be too scared to use his firearm so he has two body-guards. Are they armed? When it comes to self-defense, how long must Americans endure being preached down to by upper-crust gated community, goon-protected self-styled aristocrats? It reminds me of the unquenchable hypocrisy flowing from ultra-rich super-liberal Senator Ed Kennedy raging about the plight of the poor in America. Savage continued railing against conservatives claiming the “knee-jerk” reaction from “right-wingers” is; “You can’t touch guns. But we must touch guns!” He yelled becoming unhinged. “Tell me I’m wrong that every nut-job in the world shouldn’t be able to get ‘assault-weapons’ (sic). You’re wrong! Too many nuts have their hands on too many guns!” He accused conservatives of arguing “nuts” should be allowed to have guns adding that those who claim they “need assault-weapons” (sic) for home defense “would poop in their pants instead. People armed is not the answer!” He shouted.3

On the following day, Savage claimed “right-wingers” oppose any and all restrictions on who can have a gun and the number of rounds held by a “clip” adding; “I have no idea why anyone in this country ‘needs’ a thirty-round clip (sic). Who really needs an assault-rifle? What, to hunt elephants? Don’t they use single-shot rifles, in .30-06 to hunt elephants? A single round from that caliber would drop an elephant. So what in the hell do we need a thirty-round ‘clip’ (sic) for? I know, you’re going to stand up like Paul Revere and you’re going to say Charge! You won’t say charge. You’ll drop your gun, you’ll drop your shorts, and you’ll run like everyone else. Stop pretending that you’re a big hero!” He then called for banning “assault weapons” (Meaning ARs, AKs, and similar function rifles) and “multiple round ‘clips” claiming this would limit the number of guns in circulation hence limiting criminal access. The Texas killer was able to kill so many people because “He had a machine gun in his hands!” Savage shouted. But, with an “assault-weapons” (sic) ban, he continued, the killer would have been forced to use a single-shot rifle which would have allowed the men in the church to have subdued him by beating him over the head with a chair. To this insanity Savage added; “One in five police officers is killed by an assault-rifle” and then he screamed; “I no longer believe Americans need to run around with thirty-round ‘clips’ (sic) and assault rifles! When the hell did the 2nd Amendment ever say you had the right to own an ‘assault-weapon?’ (sic) What am I going to do with one, wait for the day the government comes to get me? I’m going to hold off a platoon of government agents? You people are living in a dream world!” He then asserted, as before, AR15s were useless for home defense. The best weapon, he said, is a shotgun but they “are complicated to use” and “their mechanisms are complex, not for amateurs.” Savage again claimed an AR15 round will go through house walls but shotgun pellets would not. A pistol round might go through a wall but this was unlikely, he claimed, because they had 15 to 20 round “clips” (sic) as opposed to the thirty-round capacity of “assault-weapons” (sic). Finally Savage claimed because there are restrictions on the 1st Amendment, you can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater or threaten the president, banning “assault-weapons” and thirty-round “clips” didn’t violate the 2nd Amendment. “There’s a difference between the right to bear arms and the right to bear machine-guns” he said.4

It would be beyond charitable to describe what Savage said as either abysmally ignorant or intentionally deceptive. His persistence in calling magazines “clips” and conflation of the terms “assault-weapon” (no such animal), assault-rifle, and machine gun with semiautomatic rifles demonstrates his knowledge of firearms is limited, at best, and promotion of an agenda supersedes honesty.

Conceding the Texas killer was stopped by an armed man but this would have failed inside the church because, Barney Fife-like, fear-stricken and trembling men would have dropped their guns shooting themselves is illogical. It is stupid. It also ignores the many, more than capable, men and women who carry and could have stopped the killer. It makes no sense unless Savage, shamed there are real people with spines out there, beyond the Bay Area, in places like Texas, is projecting his own timorous nature onto others. During any mass shooting event, in the time it takes to call the police, for them to respond, set up a command post, assess the situation, identify the good from the bad guy(s), and formulate a counter-response, the massacre is usually over. Contrary to the lies told by Savage, when a “good-guy” with a gun is on the scene, casualties are “dramatically lower” and is often the deciding factor in limiting the “body count.” In nine mass shootings in which victims had to wait for police arrive, from Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas (16 October, 1991) to Pulse Night Club, Orlando, Florida (12 June, 2016) 220 people died. In eight similar shootings in which an armed good-guy was on the scene, from Pearl High School, Pearl, Mississippi (1 October, 1997) to the Curtis Culwell Center, Garland, Texas (3 May 2015), 37 people died.5 Savage’s attack on men and women willing to shoulder the responsibility for the safety of others, putting their own lives on the line, is disgraceful.

Why do liberals seem to go after the rights of law-abiding Americans as opposed to violent criminals (Chicago)? Why do they mock and ridicule notions of personal responsibility with respect to self-defense? Are the spines of liberal men removed in-vitro or do they dissolve naturally as they progress toward puberty? Savage’s allegation; conservatives want every “nut” to have guns, is a malicious lie and ignores the fact that, under “federal” law, they are already prohibited from so doing. Information on anyone institutionalized and or adjudicated “mentally defective” by mental health officials and judges must be forwarded to the FBI where it is entered into their massive data base known as NICS (National Instant Criminal Background System). If anyone so classified attempts to purchase a firearm, once the FFL (Federal Firearm License) holder calls and submits the individual’s name as required by law, they will be rejected. Further, as to Savage’s assertion armed law-abiding citizens are not the “answer,” approximately 2.5 million people per year employ a firearm to prevent violent criminal attack. In 98% of those cases, displaying the firearm is enough to stop the attack.6 Instead of reducing violent crime, Savage’s solution, disarming intended victims, always the first on the scene by virtue of their status as targets of criminals, would lead to even more murders and mass shootings.

Savage’s analogy between the “right” to drive and to keep and bear arms is slick sleight of hand. There is no constitutional right to drive and it is untrue that the manufacture, sale, and possession of firearms is completely unregulated, unrestricted, and unlicensed. All manner of legal restrictions, including age, legal status as a citizen, mental health, criminal record, and so forth apply to obtaining a firearm. Savage ignores the fact that each year more than 37,000 Americans are killed by other drivers in automobile accidents, essentially negligent homicide, with an additional 2.35 million injured, maimed, and crippled. Automobile accidents are the single greatest cause of death in the United States.7 Speaking as a passionate car lover and former police traffic investigator, Americans in general are careless, cavalier in attitude, irresponsible, and exert little effort to perfect driving skills. And yet once started, they and their automobiles pose a grave hazard to everyone in their path. By contrast, more than 124 million Americans own close to 300 million guns but there were only 505 deaths by gun accident in 2013 and of 2,596,993 deaths from all causes the same year, only 1% were firearm related and most were suicides.8 Comparing drivers to people who own guns makes for a very poor argument. One wonders to which constitution he refers.

The right to keep and bear arms is not subject to a utilitarian “needs” test. It’s no one’s business how many neckties, cars, horses, guns, or pairs of shoes anyone owns. People have a G_d-given right to their property and to accumulate however much of it they desire. But, for the non-gun owning public swayed by such arguments, let me ask you this; how many guns, rounds (not bullets) of ammunition, and magazines will you need when the power goes out, it’s not coming back on for a long time, and when called, the cops aren’t coming either. Remember the riots in Los Angeles (1992), Ferguson, Missouri (August 2014), and Baltimore (April 2015) and attendant looting, robbery, destruction of private property, and even assaults including murder? Where were the cops? Where was the National (sic) Guard? Natural disasters like Hurricanes Andrew (August 1992), Katrina (August 2005), and Harvey (sic) (August 2017) all resulted in attempted looting, rape, robbery, and destruction of property. Again, where were the police? In each case it was armed citizens, or lack thereof, who prevented crime or fell to predatory animals called looters.

Savage’s attempt to delegitimize semiautomatic rifles by tying them to elephant hunting is pathetic. No one hunts elephants with so-called “assault rifles,” nor a .30-06 single shot rifle. It is illegal to hunt elephants (as is the case with buffalo, Rhinos, and lions) with a caliber smaller than the .375 H&H. Most professional and experienced hunters use either the .404 Jeffrey, .416 Rigby, .416 Remington, .458 Winchester, or the .470 Nitro Express in bolt action repeating rifles.9 The point is not to argue the efficacy of one caliber compared to another but to demonstrate Savage hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about. These are all strawman arguments. Savage also seems ignorant of the fact that it was the American citizen soldier; the farmer, mechanic, tradesman, shopkeeper, and laborer, trained to arms, who were the backbone of the resistance to Britain’s armies in the War of Independence possessing modern equivalents of the “assault rifles” of their time.

In Federalist Paper #28, Alexander Hamilton declared the people held an “original right of self-defense” to take up arms, resist, and defeat even their own government should it betray and usurp their liberties.10 In Federalist #29, Hamilton added the “best possible security” against a standing army was the whole body of the people, who are armed and “stand ready to defend their own rights.”11 In the Federalist Papers and writings of many other Founding Fathers it becomes clear the main purpose of an armed populace, not a military or National (sic) Guard was to serve as a bulwark against infringement of their liberties by their own government.

Savage’s claim one in five police officers is killed in the line of duty by “assault-rifles” is false. It comes, from Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat, California), who appeared on Face the Nation making this claim. She took this “statistic” from the Violence Policy Center, a virulently anti-2nd Amendment Leftist organization. Here’s the trick. California classifies all semiautomatic firearms, including pistols, rifles, and shotguns, as “assault-weapons” (sic) a classification rejected by the FBI. Feinstein and Savage conflate California’s broad and ambiguous “assault-weapons” category with semiautomatic rifles meaning ARs, but this is a lie. Roughly 1% of officers shot and killed in the line of duty are killed by semiautomatic rifles.12 Using lies spun by ultra-liberal Senator Feinstein and an extremist anti-2nd Amendment group? Does Savage attack conservatives so viciously, while claiming to be one himself because, well, he’s not really one after all?

More demonstrations of ignorance can be found in Savage’s claim that shotguns are complicated and complex to use. This is absurd. A shotgun is typically one of the first guns kids learn to shoot because its operation is so simple. His claim AR15 rounds will, but shotgun pellets won’t penetrate sheetrock walls is wrong to the point of being dangerous. They all will. Finally, his use of the hackneyed “you can’t yell fire in a crowdedtheater” cliché is another liberal shibboleth. Pay attention Michael; the 1st Amendment is a prohibition against government interfering with free political speech. For it to be free, one must rightly possess or control the platform from which one speaks. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is not political speech nor does its shouter own the platform from which they yell. At the least, it’s a property rights violation of the theater owner, the sole determiner of what will or will not be said on his platform. The same holds true for threats against the president. These are fallacious if not atrocious analogues.

Savage’s straw man arguments and discreditable analogies demonstrate ignorance of the fact America’s Declaration of Independence proclaimed all rights G_d-given, inalienable, and among them is life. They are off limits to a majority vote of one’s neighbors or act of government. Inherent in the right to life is the right to protect it which also presupposes the means to do so. It is an illegal and unconstitutional act by man or his governments to alter, modify, regulate, infringe upon, or in any way denature a G_d-given right. It is not possible to square calls for “reasonable gun laws,” which by their nature must violate the 2nd Amendment, with equal claims to support the 2nd Amendment.

11 Typically I employ terms like: Killer, murderer, dirt bag, scum bag, and so forth. A shooter is someone engaged in target practice and competition at the range. Never let your foes and the ignorant shape the narrative through misuse, intentional or not, of vocabulary.

22 Unless someone clearly defines what they mean by “nut,” you should not presume you share the same understanding. For example, to me the term applies to an individual clinically diagnosed as schizophrenic. A person suffering an emotional meltdown, depression, or PTSD, for example, is not necessarily insane, often far from it. Savage lumps them, including soldiers returning from war who have difficulty adjusting to civilian life with the same broad brush as the insane. Cops who have seen too great a loss of life, in tragic ways, too many times and are having trouble dealing with it, could, under Savage’s broad brush, be characterized as nuts as well. They are not.

So this last week the Parasha was Vayishlach. This is an exciting portion. It’s when Jacob/Yakov/Israel returns home from his exile working for his crooked uncle Laban. Yakov had fled his brother Esav’s murderous rage after Esav regretted having sold his birthright for a bowl of beans, lentils. Esav didn’t value his birthright in the least. Probably a message in there for those that would pressure Israel to give up land for peace. It never works, because like Esav, they just always want more and don’t keep their end of the bargain. So, Yakov is returning home with his wives, their handmaidens and 12 children, a passel of camels, donkeys, sheep, goats and some servants. Yakov has done well, he is a very successful shepherd. But, he is in a quandary, what will his meeting with his brother be like? Will Esav still want to kill him, or will time have mellowed him. Yakov sends angels to ascertain his intentions. Turns out Esav hasn’t changed a bit. He’s heading towards Yakov with 400 men. Yakov is way outnumbered.

The fear is understandable, but his response contains an enigma. Why the duplication of verbs? What is the difference between fear and distress? To this a Midrash gives a profound answer:

Rabbi Judah bar Ilai said: Are not fear and distress identical? The meaning, however, is that “he was afraid” that he might be killed; “he was distressed” that he might kill. For Jacob thought: If he prevails against me, will he not kill me; while if I prevail against him, will I not kill him? That is the meaning of “he was afraid” – lest he should be killed; “and distressed” – lest he should kill.

And this brings us to self-defense.

One might argue that Jacob should surely not be distressed about the possibility of killing Esau, for there is an explicit rule: “If someone comes to kill you, forestall it by killing him.” Nonetheless, Jacob did have qualms, fearing that in the course of the fight he might kill some of Esau’s men, who were not themselves intent on killing him but merely on fighting his men. And even though Esau’s men were pursuing Jacob’s men, and every person has the right to save the life of the pursued at the cost of the life of the pursuer, nonetheless there is a condition: “If the pursued could have been saved by maiming a limb of the pursuer, but instead the rescuer killed the pursuer, the rescuer is liable to capital punishment on that account.” Hence Jacob feared that, in the confusion of battle, he might kill some of Esau’s men when he might have restrained them by merely inflicting injury on them.

Self defense is very definitely a Jewish concept, but unlike his brother Esav who delights in it, Yakov will do so if required, but he wants to avoid it. The taking of a life is not something to be done lightly. So what did he do to try to prevent needless loss of life?

He had a three pronged approach. Prayer, he threw himself on G-d’s mercy, he sent lavish tribute female and male goats, sheep, donkeys, camels all with the proper proportion for the most effective breeding program. Sort of a gift that keeps on giving. But then he prepared for battle. He divided his people into camps, his thinking was that if one camp was attacked the other might escape. Then he had the children with each of their mothers. Yakov knew the four women would fight for their children, so he left the children with their mothers, then he placed himself in front of them. Esav would have to go through Yakov to get to his family.

I’ve heard the opinion that if Yakov had really trusted G-d there would have been none of this battle preparation business. He would have just gone and met his brother. I don’t agree with this opinion. I think people are people and they have plans of their own. Plans I may not appreciate or agree with. I think if their plans concern me, I want a say in how they turn out. As Esav’s plans would have included Yakov’s family, I figure he felt the same way. There are cemeteries with those that refused to believe anything bad would happen to them. I’ve heard that there were Jews in the Warsaw ghetto that refused the chance to escape because they didn’t really think the nazis wanted to annihilate them, and perhaps, because they expected a miracle. I heard Rabbi Tovia Singer say in a lecture that while the Jewish nation will always be preserved, that promise does not extend to individuals. I’ve also heard it said that when you pray for help, you usually have to do something, expend some kind of effort for him to have something to help you with. And so, Yakov had his three pronged approach, which ultimately was successful. There was no battle between brothers, only a brotherly meeting, with quite possibly temporary brotherly feelings judging from Yakov’s refusal of Esav’s offer to escort them. It’s like having a black snake to guard your chicken house from mice. Yeah….the snake may eat the mice, but more than likely it is eating the chicken eggs, and/or baby chicks. I’ll pass, and Yakov did as well.

Moral dilemmas are situations in which doing the right thing is not the end of the matter. The conflict may be inherently tragic. Jacob, in this parsha, finds himself trapped in such a conflict: on the one hand, he ought not allow himself to be killed; on the other, he ought not kill someone else; but he must do one or the other. The fact that one principle (self-defence) overrides another (the prohibition against killing) does not mean that, faced with such a choice, he is without qualms, especially given the fact that Esau is his twin brother. Despite their differences, they grew up together. They were kin. This intensifies the dilemma yet more. Sometimes being moral means that one experiences distress at having to make such a choice. Doing the right thing may mean that one does not feel remorse or guilt, but one still feels regret or grief about the action that needs to be taken.

Even people of great faith, realize that there is a time to “Praise the L-rd and pass the ammunition”.

There is nothing about being prepared with a gun, a concealed carry endorsement if your state requires it, that says you don’t believe that G-d can and will keep you safe. We have fire extinguishers and spare tires, right? We have generators for bad weather, and carry an umbrella. The right tool for the right time.

That I think, is one of the things about concealed carry holders that leftists, politicians and the #FakeNews (sometimes one in the same) don’t understand about “gun nuts”. We are not anxious to kill, we don’t want to do that. What we do want is for us and our families to be safe.

Heat seeking bullets, who knew? Did BassPro have these listed in the Black Friday flier?

Self defense is not a spur of the minute deal. We put thought into what gun, training tactics, classes and tests to be able to live as free citizens. Just like Yakov had his three pronged approach for meeting Esav, we too plan our defenses.

These mixed feelings were born thousands of years earlier, when Jacob, father of the Jewish people, experienced not only the physical fear of defeat but the moral distress of victory. Only those who are capable of feeling both, can defend their bodies without endangering their souls.

Because like Yakov facing Esav, there can be bigger, stronger, mightier evil that hates us.

Recently I had occasion to patronize several commercial establishments including an apartment complex. Displayed on the glass entry door of each was the international symbol for “No,” a red circle bisected by a diagonal line. Centered in each was a handgun; Beretta 92FS in the first, 1911A1, possibly a Colt, in the second, and a Glock 19, Gen 4 in the third. I thought; thank G-d for Smith & Wesson. Why do those responsible for malls, schools, stores, apartments, and venues open to the public believe posting these stickers deters those bent on violent behavior? Criminals, by behavior and definition, exist outside the law and if legal prohibitions against them possessing firearms provide no dissuasion, a decal surely won’t. Instead they disarm the law-abiding, the only ones already on the scene capable of halting violent crime and mass shootings.

Webster’s Dictionary (a virginal source of information for today’s public school students) define Straw Man as: “a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up to be easily confuted (overwhelm in argument, refute conclusively).”1 Talk show host and baron of bombast Michael Savage knows something about Strawmen. Recently he launched a series of attacks on the 2nd Amendment, specifically semiautomatic rifles as well as their owners. His wild assertions were an army of scarecrows so stuffed with combustible straw, one dared draw nigh with matches at his own risk. When anyone says; “I own guns” or “I’m a big supporter of the 2nd Amendment” followed by a “but,” they don’t. They’re lying. It’s a trick to seize the intellectual and moral high ground thereby casting those in disagreement as extremists. Savage case in point. He began each show declaring support for the 2nd Amendment followed by an angry frothing at the mouth denunciation of firearms owners and notions of self-defense. In so doing, he promoted arguments undercutting the very amendment he purports to defend. Hay crammed in his Strawmen must have been plucked from the field of contradiction.

Savage’s first broadside came the day after the Las Vegas, Nevada Mandalay Bay Hotel mass shooting. He said he was a gun owner, big supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and to have given a “fortune” to the NRA apparently believing by brandishing such credentials he was immunized against critique. Savage asked if Americans should be able (allowed) to own “military grade weapons” and “assault rifles,” terms left undefined. He asked; should a man in therapy and on medication for mental problems be allowed to own a gun? If concealed carry was legal, how could armed citizens have stopped the killer’s rampage Savage demanded to know. In mocking tones he added; “Gun-slingers will say that. No matter what you hold in your pocket, you couldn’t have defended yourself. Fallacious argument. All you John Wayne’s with concealed carry on your mind, put it aside. You’d have gone down like ten pins.” He asked why anyone “needed” an “automatic weapon” declaring there needs to be “limits.” Should people be “allowed” to own a Howitzer, Russian tank, or bazooka? No one “needs” a semiautomatic rifle to defend their house, Savage continued, saying a shotgun was much better in that role. “The whole idea you’re going to get a semiautomatic rifle to hold off an army, come on. Stop the BS. If someone breaks into your house all you’ll have time to grab in the dark is a shotgun and an automatic pistol, not a semiautomatic rifle. Unless you keep a semiautomatic weapon fully loaded, and in your bedroom, it’s not going to do you any good. And if you do keep one, you’re crazy. If you keep a semiautomatic rifle next to your bed cocked and locked and ready to fire, you’re a sicko.” He then mocked Mandalay survivors who said they were no longer atheists. Next he attacked unnamed conservative talk-show radio hosts who, after Mandalay Bay, still opposed new gun control laws and regulations, yelling into the microphone; “You bunch of John Wayne’s!” He accused them of calling people like him, now supporting stricter new gun control laws; “lousy communist Progressives” adding in sneering tones; “No one wants to seize your guns otherwise it would have happened during the Obama years.” He asked how the killer had obtained “machine guns” because “they’re illegal” reminding listeners he wasn’t new to the gun control debate and had been on his high school rifle team. He asked if every psycho in the nation should own machine guns. “Did you know machine guns are legal in Nevada?” Savage continued. “But of course, fully automatic rifles are illegal.” What? Come again. Continuing in mocking tones, he asked who “needed” a fifty round drum magazine. “They should be illegal!” He shouted. “I argued this before. When I asked callers why they ‘needed’ one, they said to hold off the U.S. government which is against the private ownership of firearms.”2

Savage continued his assault on the 2nd Amendment the following day floating hysterical conspiracy theories attacking the Las Vegas Police for taking too long to assault the killer’s hotel room. Once again he reminded listeners he was a gun owner, “passed all the tests,” and gave money to the NRA therefore his calls for new gun bans had to be reasonable. Again he asked if the right to keep and bear arms included hand grenades, bazookas, used Russian tanks, and half-tracks asking; “Should there be limits on the right to keep and bear arms? What do you mean saying the 2nd Amendment ‘permits’ you to have any number of machine guns? Does this mean you can own two hundred machine guns, that every man should be able to have an arsenal in his basement? I can see having weapons to defend yourself but does that mean an entire arsenal? Why not RPGs and flame throwers? I don’t think the 2nd Amendment goes far enough” he continued in sarcastic tones. “I think we should be allowed to have flame throwers for that evil government that may arise any moment now. We should be able to have flame throwers.” During Savage’s shows, he insisted on calling magazines “clips” and using the terms semi and fully automatic rifles interchangeably.3 He entertained, as experts, numerous callers claiming because they had been in Vietnam, they knew precisely what weapons the suspect used (opinions subsequently contradicted by the FBI). Many voices sounded too tender to have been alive let alone old enough to have served in Vietnam. Once again he labeled anyone holding contrary views as “John Wayne’s” and “right- wingers” promising to hang up on them if they called his show. Savage concluded by attacking the Las Vegas Police, again, and blaming mass shootings on prescription drugs and the “proliferation of guns.”4

Savage’s claims and Straw Man arguments are wrong on so many levels, space and sufficient matches probably don’t exist to address them all. His oft repeated claim to be a firearms authority, supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and NRA backer is artifice, a trick as noted, to prevent debate to the contrary.

As to the efficacy of concealed firearms with respect to the Mandalay massacre, handguns are designed for self-defense at personal distances not against someone shooting rifles from the 32nd floor of a hotel window hundreds of yards away. Savage’s attempt to undermine concealed carry by judging its validity against situations for which it was never intended is a fallacious straw man argument a practice he accuses critics of employing. Does he really know what he’s talking about?

Doctors don’t use the terms bacterial and viral infection interchangeably. Weight lifters know the difference between dumb and barbells. Authorities on any subject use proper terminology. Improper use exposes pretenders, poseurs, and frauds. For example, in Stephen King’s novel Salem’s Lot, his policeman character checks his .38 special revolver to ensure the “safety is on.”5 A kid in his novel IT, warns another kid to be careful with his dad’s pistol, a Walther PPK, because it has “no safety.”6 In the movie The Fast And The Furious, Vin Diesel’s character Dominic Torretto tells Paul Walker that his dad’s 1970 Dodge Charger’s engine had so much torque, it twisted the “chassis” coming off the line.7 As a Deputy Sheriff and later policeman in the 1970s and 80’s, I carried and or shot Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Colt revolvers in .38 special and .357 magnum. None, nor those on revolvers of colleagues, had a “safety.” I’ve also shot a variety of PPKs from Walther and Manurhin and their clones from FEG to Bersa and each had de-cocker safeties. Except for the Imperial (1965), Chrysler abandoned the chassis in favor of a uni-body frame, (1960-1961), which my 68’ Charger has, exposing TheFast And The Furious’s writers to be automotive ignoramuses. In like fashion, Savage insisted on referring to drums and other magazines feeding semiautomatic pistols and rifles as “clips” and conflated “assault weapons, assault rifle, semiautomatic rifle,” and “machine gun” as interchangeable terms, one and the same over and over.

A “clip” holds individual cartridges, “has no spring and does not feed shells directly into the chamber. Clips hold cartridges in the correct sequence for ‘charging’ a specific firearm’s [fixed] magazine.”8 A magazine holds rounds in a box, separate from the firearm for the weapons under discussion. Examples of clip “fed” firearms would include the Russian Mosin-Nagant 91/30 and American M1 Garand of W.W. II fame as well as the postwar Soviet SKS. Cold War weapons like the Soviet AK-47, U.S. M14, and later M16, are magazine fed. No such category of “assault weapon” exists for firearms. Any object that can be used to hurt another; flyswatter, umbrella, coat-hanger, or kitchen counter hardened wedge of cornbread is an assault weapon. The term “assault-weapon” was invented by liberals to frighten non-gun owners into believing your AR15 is identical to an M16 and that AKs and Mini-14s are full-automatic machine guns. Repeat after me; “The other side lies.” Editor of Jane’s Military Publications and firearms expert Charlie Cutshaw writes there are firearms categorized as “assault-rifles” but to be so classified they must be “shoulder-fired,” capable of fully automatic fire,” and chambered in a caliber intermediate “between pistol (or revolver) and rifle ammunition.”9 Some have a device allowing operators to switch from semiautomatic to full-automatic fire and back again. Commercial AK47s, AR15s, Mini-14s, and similar families of rifles don’t have this capability. Their triggers must be pulled, one at a time, for each round fired hence they are not “assault rifles” but “semiautomatic rifles” and “carbines.” “Machine guns” are typically heavy and tripod mounted, with hand held versions called “submachine guns,” and are capable of full automatic fire, emptying a magazine with a single pull of the trigger.10 Consistent misuse of terminology indicates Savage is grossly ignorant and misinformed, flagrantly dishonest, or both. He has no credibility.

No one wants to take your guns is the mantra of people, who, in the same breath, call for “assault weapons” (sic) and “high-capacity” (sic) bans. Time and again Liberals from anti-2nd Amendment organizations to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have said no one wants to take your guns and then promote Australian gun control which did just that. They are either stupid or brilliantly cunning. Perhaps dangerously naïve, I have never called liberals stupid because they’re not. Recall that U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake essentially resurrected the “sporting purpose” standard in upholding Maryland’s ban on AK and AR rifles mislabeling them “assault rifles” asserting they are not commonly used for lawful purposes including home defense.11 Liberals claiming; no one wants to confiscate guns, followed by proposals to ban AR, AK, and similar rifles, sounds contradictory until one understands their two pronged “trick”; the first is how they define “gun.”12Confiscationists define “gun” in general as a firearm possessing a long established sporting purpose commonly used for hunting, trap and skeet shooting, and target competition at ranges and with no military analogue.13 This would exclude ARs, AKs, FN-FALs, and so forth. The second part of their trick is to convince the non-gun owning pubic there is no difference between full and semiautomatic firearms. Obama and others said time and again, AR15s, AKs, their derivatives, and similar rifles are military weapons that belong on battlefields, not our streets. It would not be confiscation, they argue, to return military weapons in civilian hands back to the U.S. Military where they belong.14 The only way to do this is through a ban on “civilian” possession of semiautomatic rifles and confiscate them as did Australia and England, and incrementally in California. How can Savage, living in Marin County, California, one of the most liberally infected in the galaxy, deny confiscation is not the liberal’s end game? He lies.

Like Judge Blake, Savage’s claim no one uses and no “cop” would recommend using an AR15 for home defense because they are such a poor choice, is pure buffoonery from one who has lived for too many years behind the Bay Area’s Tofu Curtain.15 Breathlessly, about to reveal a secret, Savage said his listeners, had never heard or been “told this” but one of the reasons AR15s are such poor choices is because the .223 round goes through walls. Shotguns and pistols are better because their rounds don’t. On the contrary, “More Americans than ever are relying on AR15s for home defense. Not only is an AR easier to shoot more accurately than a handgun—thanks to its additional points of contact with the body (cheek weld, shoulder mount, and two hands)—[and longer sight radius]—on AR rifles chambered in .223/Rem/5.56 NATO, produces superior terminal performance, and penetrates less when compared to the typical handgun.”16 An AR is harder to grab in the dark than a pistol or shotgun, Michael? Why is that? People have been attaching optics and lights to ARs for decades. A cocked and locked rifle makes one a “psycho” Michael?17 Employing his unloaded pistols and shotguns without lights against intruders beggars the question as to whose sanity should be in question. His rhetorical cant; “who needs” this or that firearm or “high capacity clips” and that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t allow possession of bazookas, hand grenades, and Russian tanks is a fallacious Straw Man argument to set the stage for infringements against the 2nd Amendment.

Savage is ignorant of or intentionally misrepresents the 2nd Amendment’s meaning. It grants no rights including to own anything. Rather, it recognizes an individual right to self-defense, to keep and bear arms, and establishes prohibitions against any government infringement on this right. The Declaration of Independence establishes it as a G-d-given right belonging to every individual inherent in their humanity whether government exists or not. It is inalienable and off-limits to a majority vote by one’s neighbors, act of government, or fashionable whim of the times. Rights cannot be modified, regulated, licensed, or infringed upon by government otherwise they would be called privileges.18 Inherent in the right of self-defense is the means by which one exercises it. To answer Savage’s “need” question, rights are not dependent upon a utilitarian need standard which, at best, is arbitrary, subject to popular opinion, or manipulated and controlled by those in power. Were this not so, government could raise the bar to demonstrate “need” so high, it becomes insurmountable thus rendering the right de facto abolished. Employing Savage’s Straw Man “need” standard to firearms ownership would subordinate it to ephemeral notions of “the common good, the good of the whole,” or “the greater good.”19 How long before it became extinguished? Ask Britons. By suggesting the 2nd Amendment regulates bazookas, half-tracks, Russian tanks, and grenades, therefore rifles can be regulated as well, is hay falling from massive gaps in Savage’s last Straw Man. Matches please.

Half-tracks and used Russian tanks are not firearms hence are regulated by other laws not the 2nd Amendment which applies to weapons citizen soldiers would keep and bear. Bazookas were the technological equivalent of shoulder fired canons, used against tanks, and grenades are sort of like exploding cannon balls. None of these are proper analogues to firearms. These are fallacious and false arguments employed by the deceitful to trick the unwary into surrendering bits and pieces of their 2nd Amendment rights until all of them are gone. This explains why Savage banned calls from those who knew what they were talking about in favor of kooks, conspiratorialists, the deluded, and poseurs.

1717 Expanding what constitutes “mental illness” and “mental instability” is very popular on the Left who will use such determinations to expand individuals prohibited from owning firearms. Can thought-crimes be far behind?

I don’t think there is anyway to say it that makes it better. I’ve just seen one too many things recently that just makes it seems like there is a competition for the “Most insane or hypocritical” category. Though perhaps those two should each have their own category.

Let’s start with Israel. She is still under attack from the pieceful Falestinians. They are flying fire kites in an attempt to burn crops, vineyards, wildlife, domestic animals, people and anything else they can reach. This is because they love the land so deeply. Sort of like the abusive spouse that says they love you so much that if you ever try to leave they will either kill you and take everything. Yeah, boy howdy, if that doesn’t say true love I don’t know what does. L-O-V-E, like OJ loved Nicole. We want to return to the land we love so much, we’re going to burn it down, break through this security fence, invade a sovereign country and rip the Jews hearts from their chest. Nope, not hyperbole, that’s actually a quote.

So, you have the arabs of Gaza trying to throw the Jews off the land and out of their homes.

And, in the Nativ Ha’avot neighborhood of Elazar in Gush Etzion which is about 11 miles South of Jerusalem, the Capitol of Israel, it’s working!! Jews are being thrown off their lands and out of their homes! No no, not by the Falestinians or Abu Mazen, but instead by the Israeli (way less than) Supreme Court. Yes, once again the liberal Jew hating left has submitted a claim that one meter, one flipping meter of land that runs through the neighborhood is arab. Mind you, they can’t prove it, or haven’t yet. The homes were ordered destroyed in September 2016, and this overrode a State of Israel assertion that they homes were/are legal. Israeli politicians showed up, I guess to talk, because they certainly didn’t do anything useful, like stopping it! Judge Ayelet Shaked was there and has said it’s unnecessary. You see, when those homes were built 15-20 years ago, the state certified that the land was all-cool and fine to build on. Now because of a leftist group fifteen homes are going to be destroyed. I watched Ari Fuld live stream from the scene of the impending crime and he nailed it as self-hating Jews on the Supreme court. Mind you they still haven’t proved the arab claim on the one meter. But, the homes are being destroyed. After Amona, I’m so ticked I’m not using any of the words that I think apply. A group of young Israelis circulated a petition to stop it. That didn’t work either. I watched the people singing and dancing in one of the beautiful homes, it’s heartbreaking especially after Amona.

I think someone needs to have a serious talk with the Jewish Agency and tell them this sort of thing really puts a damper on people wanting to move to a country that will throw you out of the home you’ve lived in for 20 years on the whim of some left-wing group or a spurious claim of an arab that may not have even known he “owned” the land until two weeks before. And, quite possibly found out through the efforts of the aforementioned left-wing group.

And since under Bibi Netanyahu this keeps happening, I sincerely, most sincerely hope that Israelis will begin to listen to the message of Moshe Feiglin and Zehut. If this is breaking my heart, I can only imagine the pain of those going through it.

But this leftist hatred of Jews goes way back. I read an interesting article by Stephen Schecter of Zehut. He was talking history, specifically the Dreyfus affair. And he nails it.

The Dreyfus Affair unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism in French society at the time, an anti-Semitism which proved to be European when it culminated in the Nazi pan-European program to incinerate its Jewish population. Today, Israel’s very existence has unleashed a torrent of anti-Jewish vitriol whose ultimate denouement remains to be seen.

It is in that sense that one can simply state that Israel is a reincarnation of the Dreyfus Affair, but one which goes on and on, and which will only end when Israel, and the Jews themselves, decide to put an end to it. Unfortunately, there are today too many Jews who place themselves on the side that vilifies Israel, without even the decency of the French Jews of Dreyfus’ time who simply kept a low profile. Their excuse was most likely they felt vulnerable as a minority in a country that was not their own. Today they have no such excuse. Israel exists as a Jewish state. In working to destroy it, however, these latter-day Jews will reproduce the helplessness of their French co-religionists of a hundred years ago, and thus bequeath to history the ironic footnote of Jewish complicity in their own demise.

Macron’s logic and morality run along the same lines. If the move of the American embassy to Jerusalem breeds violence in Gaza, it is morally and politically imperative not to do it. Peace above all, even if it means the clogging of the arteries of Israel’s heart, is good for Israel, and for the world, according to this moral anti-Semitic argument. To balance it off, Macron draws moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas by refusing to address this entity’s expressed supreme goal of destroying Israel. Peace, the anti-Semites will argue, is more important than Israel.

Somehow it always seems to be Israel that the nations are willing to lead to the alter for sacrifice. Even the left-wing Jews, maybe even especially the left-wing Jews. For instance, crazy Bernie Sanders

He has adopted the Palestinian narrative about the “Great March of Return” in total. He not only accepts the blatantly false claim that it is “non-violent,” thereby ignoring the use of Molotov cocktails, stones, firearms and incendiaries that have laid waste to swaths of Israeli fields. He also claims that Hamas wasn’t involved despite the fact that it has already claimed responsibility and admitted that most of those killed while attempting to breach Israel’s border fence were members of the terror group.

What a hateful, horrible lying man. He also lied about the number of deaths during the 2014 Gaza war, he gave even higher figures than those Hamass fabricated. How pathetic is that? He needs his meds/adjusted/started/re-evaluated/whatever.

But Bernie is a elitist. No matter what happens to the little people, he’s above it all.

No armed teachers in schools? No worries, Illinois Demoncrats hates the kids so much they are getting rid of the armed guards. Illinois House approves measure to replace armed school guards with mental health professionals Because obviously Demoncrats recognize having armed guards or armed teachers will do nothing to help. Unless of course you are an elitist. Like for example obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, one of those responsible for Common (rotten to the) Core failing program.

On May 20 Breitbart News reported that Duncan suggested Americans ought to pull their kids from school until Congress passes more gun control. He said he and his family would even be willing to take part in the school boycott if it were done “at scale,” i.e., if there were broad-based participation in such a boycott.

……

Jewish World Review reports that Duncan’s children “attend the exclusive, private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in tony Hyde Park, which a Lab Schools brochure brags is ‘patrolled by the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) and private security.’”

So, as long as we are discussing elitist hypocrisy and the resultant craziness, let’s take a look back at a well remembered and despised catholic priest known as Father Michael Pfleger. Don’t recall the name? He’s the priest that threatened to “snuff out” the owner of Chuck’s gun shop. Actually he threatened to “hunt him down and snuff him out”. For some reason I would take that as a threat. Maybe I’m just sensitive? Not content to let it go with merely threatening one man, the good father then threatened to “snuff out” legislators that didn’t vote the way he told them. Ahh yes, Chicago mob politics. Oops, sorry, Chicago Church politics. That was back in May of 2007. And yes, he is still the priest at St. Sabina’s. Well, it seems the anti-gun priest who goes around threatening to murder, not kill, murder people has armed bodyguards, one of whom was arrested on 27th May 2018. Yep, police showed up and found the “bodyguard” holding a gun. I use quotes because it seems there is some discussion as to if he really is a bodyguard.

Records with the Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation show that Hale’s FOID card expired in December 2017. Records also show that he is certified to work in Illinois as a security guard, and that he was once disciplined but it doesn’t explain why.

A May 29 blog post on “Second City Cop” referred to Hale as “Pfleger’s security” and said that “Pfleger and his minions called 006th dist (sic) nonstop to try to get the guy out of arrest.”

How elitist and entitled. There was also discussion as to whether or not St. Sabina’s priest has armed guards.

When asked about Hale’s relationship with the 68-year-old Pfleger, a church secretary told Chicago City Wire only that Hale was not a bodyguard. He deferred further questions to Pfleger, who did not return a call to clarify whether he employed Hale as private security and whether he called CPD asking for Hale’s release.

Susan Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago, wrote in an email that “Fr. Pfleger does not have armed security and to our knowledge, neither does any other priest.”

Well, Susan Thomas, you’re in for a real shock. The people at Guns Save Lives have a delightful collection of pictures of St. Sabina’s father with his armed “bodyguards”, and they are printing. Discretion must not be their forte, just as sanity or decency is not Father Phlegm’s of St. Sabina’s.

But, when you’re an elitist hypocrite, that’s just how you roll.

And since Chicago is so concerned with guns, gun owners and gun crime I’m sure their court system is set up to handle things in a swift and just manner, right?

(Judge Stephanie) Miller—a champion of the county’s “affordable bail” movement—let Williams go free on a recognizance bond after he was charged with possessing a stolen handgun on the South Side.

……

On February 9, Williams hit the trifecta, according to police and prosecutors: He stayed out after his unenforced curfew; he got a gun, and he shot someone to death.

……..

On February 21—the very day that Williams first failed to appear in court—Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart sent a letter to county leaders including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. Dart was concerned about the “alarming” number of people charged with illegally possessing handguns who were being released on electronic monitoring.

But the terms of Williams’ release were so loose, he wasn’t even on electronic monitoring, according to court records.

Preckwinkle responded a few days later, accusing Dart of “sensationalizing” the issue.

Pat Milhizer, a spokesman for Chief Judge Timothy Evans, also fired back at Dart: “The types of cases addressed by Sheriff Dart are gun cases — but they are gun cases in which nobody was shot or killed. That means the charge is not an inherently violent charge.”

YOU’VE.GOT.TO.BE.KIDDING.ME!! This is Corrupt Chicago where priests go around threatening to “snuff out” law-abiding citizens and legislators, which I get, given Chicago may not be the same things. You are living in high crime gun control central, and they have a man who was released on a recognizance bond after possessing a stolen gun, no monitoring. He gets another gun a few months later and kills someone and the county board President accuses the Sheriff who is concerned, with sensationalizing the issue. So, if a criminal has a gun that’s not “inherently a violent charge”. Wow. Wow. But a law-abiding citizen with a gun to protect themselves or their families from Judge Stephanie Miller’s release on recognizance bail. Oh HECK no! They don’t know what they are doing, Father Phlegm will show up and threaten to “snuff them out” and the go back to St. Sabina’s to preach whatever it is he preaches at the Roman Catholic Church. I’m guessing it’s more along the lines of social justice than anything Moshe brought down from Mt. Sinai.

And for the cherry on top of the crazy. There is a Muslim Imam, Imam Mohammad Tawhidi that I admire. He is very strong and brave, very brave. He follows us on Twitter. That alone isn’t remarkable, we have Israeli followers, Iranian followers, Kurdish followers, all kinds of followers. But Imam Tawhidi is very unique. He speaks out against radical Islam, vocally, forcefully and often. Often as in daily. He’s known as the Imam of Peace. He calls Hamass a terrorist organization. People want to hear what he has to say, it’s an important message in this day and age of the UN siding with terrorists, Franceistan, Germany, and Englandistan all harboring, aiding and encouraging terrorism of innocent Israelis and the Jews in their countries as well. Social media has been a big part of spreading Imam Tawhidi’s message.

Perhaps stung by that criticism, mere days after two Muslims murdered fourteen people in San Bernardino, California, CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed that Facebook would “create a peaceful and safe environment” for Muslim users.

One day a hole opened up on the bridge to the city of Chelm, and every day people crossing the bridge fell through the hole and were injured. So the wise men of Chelm, instead of repairing the ruined bridge, decided to build the hospital under it…

So much is inverted and crazy. Terrorists are labeled as peaceful marchers, Priests are using armed guards while threatening to “snuff out” law-abiding citizens and preventing them from being able to defend themselves from Judges who release murders on recognizance and county presidents that say it’s just gun crime, not always a big deal, self-hating Jews doing everything they can to destroy the one Jewish state, and helping the arabs who are trying to burn it to the ground. The solutions being proposed might as well have come from Chelm for all the sense they make.

This is a guest contribution from one of our TZP Facebook followers, Erik Johnson, who is also a friend and darn fine Viking.

It was all over the news. The radio reporter read how the United States had finally come to its senses; the time for knife control had arrived. London Mayor Sadiq Khan gave a speech to a joint session of congress repeating his words of great wisdom “No one needs to carry a knife!” Former comedians touted on their late night shows the fact that you don’t need a 10” meat cleaver to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Moms who don’t get action President Whannon Satts declared “No child should ever have to walk into a kitchen and see a weapon.” Nancy Pelosi proposed legislation banning high capacity assault knives with features similar to knives used by the military such as pliers and screwdrivers and those plastic tooth pickey thingies. Chuck Todd on Face the Nation held up a knife made by the Victorinox Corporation and asked “Who would ever need such a thing? It is clearly made for the army.” Joe Biden pointed out in a speech given to students at Berkley that in America more people are killed every year by knives than with AR-15s. Then his handlers tackled him to the ground and promptly shoved a sock in his mouth. A child who attended a school where a knife attack occurred, although he was truant on that day, Jesse Pig, waxed poetically on The View, “Our f—–g parents don’t f—–g know how f—–g to use a f—–g knife!”, then spit out the tide pod he was choking on. Of course the usual suspects gave the typical straw man arguments. National Rapier Association President Wayne LaThereThere called a press conference to ask, “How the hell are we supposed to cut a steak or even butter toast? Really people this is nuts!” Former President Obama was first to respond to the NRA’s claims saying, “Now let me be clear. No one needs a cut steak”, as a member of his secret service detail portioned a $2000 piece of kobe beef for him which he had pilfered from the White House kitchen prior to leaving office. Then my alarm went off. I looked at the pen knife I laid on the nightstand just before going to bed. “No”, I said to it, “This country will never become so insane we will try to ban knives.” The clock radio wailed as loud as it possibly could. The radio reporter read how the United States had finally come to its senses…..

Practical and commemorative. Because no one should be left defenseless!

So little boss Hogg and his little Hogg sister are release a book to encourage taking rights, not privileges away from adults. Rights the little Hoggs are not even old enough to enjoy as they are still children. At least that’s how he referred to himself in his recent bullying session with Laura Ingraham.

The Hogg duo anxious to capitalize on their 27 seconds of fame have “written” a book. They must be paragons of organization. What with all the media appearance, school work and now managing to get a book released. All on their own. Amazing.

I received the following from a active TZP follower of facebook:

#NeverAgain has been the cry of the Jews for decades to remind people of the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.

Now, activist and high school student David Hogg is using the title “Never Again” for a book he is writing that will be published by Penguin Random House.

The book is about gun control. “A new generation has made it clear that problems previously deemed unsolvable due to powerful lobbies and political cowardice will be theirs to solve,” according to the preview of the upcoming book.

On a recent post, a commenter noted that anti-RKBA groups must have trouble recruiting workers given the conflicting skill sets of credentials and experience and the reasoning skills of a toddler. I had to disagree; since the goal of groups like Moms Demand Deaths Action isn’t reducing violence, poor logical skills aren’t needed.

Just a willingness to lie. Like Shannon “I’m just a stay at home mom” Watts, the professional public relations manager paid by Bloomberg.

Sometimes I’m willing to allow that a person is ignorant, rather than maliciously lying, when advocating for victim disarmament. That’s because there are — at least — two types of gun control advocates.

The first are those for whom the goal is a disarmed citizenry — for the sake of people control — rather than a reduction in violence.

The second is their targeted demographic: those who didn’t care enough about the subject to have already educated themselves using readily available data. The first group lies to the second to instill panic so that they will begin to care. But the targeted demographic will be operating on the dramatic lies and blood-dancing they accepted passively.

How do you tell the ignorantly well-intentioned — who might be capable of grasping reality once it’s presented — from the outright liars? Let’s look at a hypothetical situation.

Some horrible murder occurs. A group forms saying they want to prevent that happening again. They create a Facebook page to present facts about guns and violence, including a graphic that purports to show that having a gun is more likely to be a danger to you and yours, than to useful for protection. Someone else notes that they’ve referenced the debunked Kellerman study.

At this point, the gun control group could do a few things. They could ask what the Kellerman study is, suggesting they work from simple ignorance. They could stand up for the Kellerman study, which might be ignorance or lying; could go either way.

Or, they might claim that graphic doesn’t represent the Kellerman study, indicating they know what the Kellerman paper is, and that isn’t isn’t worth using as a reference.

So let’s say they did the latter. And our observant commenter points out that the graphic specifically includes text saying it’s from the Kellerman paper. A few other people jump in to tell them the same thing. And the next time our fearless commenter visits the page, his comments have been deleted, as have the others supporting his position. The Kellerman graphic remains now unchallenged. That would be a group of liars, not well-intentioned ignoramuses.

Let’s say that a state legislature is considering a bill to impose universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint background checks for firearms purchases. And let’s say that another group formed in response to the above mentioned mass shooting testify in a public hearing that universal background checks would have stopped the asshole who killed the children at Sandy Hook. Since the murderer obtained his weapons by first murdering his mother and stealing her guns, it’s hard to imagine him then stopping for a background check. But hey.

So someone contacts the group to point out the little problem with the claim. The possible responses could tell us how we should view them.

They could say that their reps were overwhelmed by emotion and misspoke, and offer a correction.

Or they could lie, and claim their reps actually said PPYI would not have stopped the Sandy Hook killer.

Oh. Darn it. This one wasn’t hypothetical either. It happened. I was there in the hearing in New Hampshire in 2014 when the Sandy Hook Promise representatives definitely said PPYI would have stopped him. I laughed out loud. So did several hundred other people, who also muttered enough about the outlandish claim that the committee chairwoman had to call for silence. And when I contacted SHP, they did lie about what their reps testified to.

In fact, I got two lies for the price of one.

“Sandy Hook Promise is firmly rooted in constitutional values and as such does not support policy or legislation that poses a burden on anyone’s rights.”

Except when they send representatives to another state to demand just such burdensome legislation. (Frankly, I’m amazed they got there. They said that Connecticut borders on New Hampshire.)

Once you’ve determined which type you’re dealing with — lying SOBs, or their knowledged challenged targets — deal with them appropriately. Call out the liars like Moms Demand Action, Sandy Hook Promise, and Giffords; especially in a manner that theirs targets can see so they’ll know they’ve been lied to. Admittedly, that’s touigh when the media are the allies of the liars (and generally liars themselves).

The knowledge-challenged you can try to educate directly. But you have to work past the false “knowledge” they’ve been suckered with.

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar.

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

…and proceeds to tell of a lawfully armed man using his training — and restraint — to not kill anyone. Apparently Mark Kelly believes that we are as thoughtless and impulsive as he is, buying a gun “on a whim” and publicizing that it is an illegal straw purchase.

When I was a child, I believed some — in retrospect — silly things. Things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

One Easter morning I happened to wake up unusually early, and caught my parents loading the Easter baskets. I’m no genius, but neither am I an idiot. I told them I knew.

And then I generalized… and asked if they were also Santa Claus. Nailed it. To be honest, I’d had suspicions about him for a while; how did he manage to work so many stores simultaneously? How did he have time to make toys when spending so much doing photoshoots at said stores? Why did he sometimes have a real beard, and sometimes a fake? Sheesh, the excuses my parents came up with to explain discrepancies…

I don’t recall just how old I was; maybe five years old; I don’t think I’d started school yet. I know I’d broken the conspiracy well before a lot of kids my age (some of whom, at school, professed to still believe in Santa until the third or fourth grade).

Another childish thing I believed back then was “gun control”. “Saturday Night Special” was a big part of that. When I heard that propaganda news about how they were just cheap pieces of junk not good for anything but killing, I just knew they were terrible and should be banned. And, just of course, “criminals” shouldn’t have guns.

I believed that into my teens. But, as with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, it was observation and reasoning that led to disbelief, beginning with “Saturday Night Specials”.

Reasoning: If a SNS works well enough to fire offensively, why won’t it work defensively? “Cheap POS not good for anything” doesn’t make sense.

OK, maybe there are some guns that are just plain Pieces of Sh garbage. The Clerke 1st revolver I once encountered was so poorly made that I wouldn’t fire it with Hillary Clinton’s hand.* Well… All right; maybe hers, but not yours. But how many Clerkes would be out there after the first use/failure? I kept hearing about recovered guns linked to multiple shootings. Those couldn’t be Clerkes.

Observation: I kept seeing news reports of guns labeled “Saturday Night Specials” which even I recognized as Smith & Wessons. It appeared the defining characteristic of an SNS was price: if you got a new Smith at full retail price, it was all good. If you bought a used model at a price that someone on a budget could afford, it’s evil.

How’s that again?.

Remember how I extrapolated from “Easter Bunny isn’t real” to Santa Claus? I kept thinking: If affordable guns are bad, doesn’t that mean only financially well off folks can have “good” guns by definition? Rich = Good, Poor = Evil? Not being wealthy, but knowing my parents — just example — were decent people, I could see right through that once I bothered to consider it.

And that whole “prohibited person” thing to keep crooks from buying guns… C’mon, even as a kid I saw the “crook buys stolen gun in back alley” trope in cop and detective shows, movies, and books. Sometimes a stereotype reflects reality. I saw that same “trope” in a lot of news stories, so I knew it was real.

So if crooks didn’t get their “Saturday Night Specials” through lawful channels anyway, didn’t that suggest the law targeted honest people, and not criminals?

That was my “slippery slope”. Before long I was wondering why kids used to safely carry .22 rifles across their bike handlebars, but suddenly couldn’t be trusted to have a gun. So far as I knew, none of my .22-toting friends had ever robbed anyone.

Being an aspiring writer even then, I figured words had to have meaning. Like “infringe”, as in

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Infringe:

to commit a breach or infraction of; violate or transgress

to encroach or trespass (usually followed by on or upon)

“Breach,” “infraction,” “encroach.” It seemed pretty clear: You can’t encroach on that right. Not even a little bit. Not just major infractions, minor infractions are out, too. Words have meaning because if they don’t, no two people can communicate. The Second Amendment doesn’t say “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be revoke in its entirety, but encroachments are dandy.” It doesn’t say “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, except when it’s convenient for the government.”

I was a kid of maybe thirteen or fourteen and I figured it out. I guess gun controllers never grew up.

The pandemic of guns in the United States is the problem of a nation, not a particular sex.

Says there that Jones is a journalism junior, which suggests a minimum age of twenty years. Jones still has trouble with the “words have meaning” thing at a point years past where I’d figured it out (and at an age where I was already
an E-4 Senior Airman in the USAF).

“Pandemic of guns.” Prevalent, general, universal. Maybe Jones knows something we don’t know. America has the most armed civilian population in the world by a large margin, yet most estimates of American gun owners range from sixty million to a a hundred-twenty million, which makes us a minority. A heavily armed minority, but still not “prevalent” or universal.

If you keep reading (and try not to giggle too much) you’ll see that Jones really alleges to be concerned about gun violence. ‘Cause that’s… not so prevalent either.

Let’s say that there are a mere — chortle — sixty million gun owners out there.

According to this, there are approximately twenty million felons in America, including those incarcerated, paroled, on probation, or whose time is done. Bureau of Justice statistics suggest that around 3% of those are weapons offenses; let’s pretend all the weapons were firearms, just for discussion. 3% of 20,000,000 is 600,000. This isn’t six hundred thousand per year; it’s six hundred thousand cumulative total. That can include someone convicted of underage possession — not a crime of violence — and never committed another crime in his life for decades.

But pretend. 600,000 is just 1% of of sixty million gun owners. Not “prevalent” or “universal”.

Did you see what I did there? I pretended the groups actually overlap. But felons can’t lawfully own guns, so they shouldn’t be included in the group of admitted gun owners. So they’d be less than even the 1%.

You know… 600,000 total felons. That’s less than two-tenths of one percent of the total American population. Hardly “pandemic”. (Heh; given an average life expectancy of 79.3 years, that could potentially mean an average of 7,566 firearms felons — including nonviolent offenses — per year for the past eight decades. Still not “prevalent” or “universal”.

Apparently Jones childishly failed to observe that.

Back to the junior journalist’s panty-twisting.

The Second Amendment, which grants citizens the right to bear arms…

A little study of American history, not to mention Supreme Court rulings, could have shown Jones that the Second Amendment does not “grant[s] citizens the right to bear arms.” It is a pre-existing right, and the Second Amendment was intended to protect it from government meddling. (Since Jones failed to notice it, I’ll provide a recent SCOTUS hint: Heller.)

Words. Meaning. Grants vs. Protects.

Norway, for instance, has a low gun homicide rate and has stricter, more reasonable gun laws. Norwegians need a hunting or sporting license, which can only be acquired by completing a “nine-session, 30-hour course on guns, wildlife and environmental protection.” A sports shooting license is issued only upon completion of a firearms safety course of at least nine hours.

True, Norway has a low murder rate and restrictive gun laws. But Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela have far more restrictive laws — of the sort that would make California socialists swoon with delight — and murder rates that dwarf that of the USA. Jones fails the “observation” test, not to mention confusing a Norwegian hunting license with a firearms license. That ““nine-session, 30-hour course on guns, wildlife and environmental protection” isn’t the requirement for a Våpenkort. That’s the requirement for a hunting license; a hunting license is merely ONE of the possible qualifiers for a Våpenkort. Words. Meaning. Great Ghu, this person expects to be a reporter and is less capable of observation and reasoning than a thirteen year old.

Gun control is not synonymous with annexing the Second Amendment, but it does mean protecting the people who live in this country.

As a humorous Internet meme notes, if Jones likes gun control so much, why not move to the south side of Chicago? It’s worked so well there. Gun-controlled Baltimore might be another good choice for Jones. But… “annexing” the Second Amendment? Words. Meaning.

I’ve piled on Dana Jones here, but only for a convenient example. Consider Gabby Giffords, Shannon Watts, or pretty much any gun controller and ask yourself if that person appears to display adult-level observation and reasoning abilities. Or do their whines for control — ignoring the fact of generally fall violent crime rates (outside of gun control Paradises like Chicago and Baltimore) — sound more like a child crying because she can’t bring her freshly dug hole into the house?

In the past, I’ve accused gun controllers of rejecting reality. Perhaps that was unfair. Maybe they just aren’t grown up enough to recognize it. They still operating at a pre-teen mental level.

Hey! That explains why they always want to “do this for the children”. They meant themselves.

* Several years ago, a friend showed me a Clerke 1st he’d somehow acquired. I looked it over. Then I wiped it down to be sure I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind. I suggested that he clean it very carefully, with forensics in mind, and load it with a single round (likewise forensically sterilized), mount it in a clamp, and fire it with a long string. He should then — still wearing gloves — load one more cleaned cartridge, leaving the fired case in place. He should then put the thing in a sealed envelope labeled “For Emergency Use Only,” and save it in case he ever shot someone in dubious circumstances and needed to plant exculpating evidence. I was joking, but I wanted to reinforce the idea that he should never ever try to use that thing.

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

When will it end?
The killings on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School will be forever remembered as a monumental failure of otherwise law-abiding gun owners to take responsibility for their freedoms.

I don’t know when it will end. But it seems highly unlikely that it will completely end until overly-emotive nonthinkers like Mr. Nehring base their victim disarmament decisions on reality rather than fantasy.

Let’s talk about the “failures” of law-abiding gun owner Mrs. Lanza.

Her son had mental problems. She spent years trying to address them.

She bought firearms through licensed dealers, going through background checks.

She reportedly kept most of her firearms locked up, some reports indicating specifically to keep them out of her son’s hands.

So what was her failure; what allowed her deranged son to get those guns and murder those people?

She fell asleep.

Yes, for those with no long-term memory, like Nehring, Mrs. Lanza’s son murdered her in her sleep so that he could steal the guns he would take to the school.

Many vocal gun owners refuse to acknowledge that with their freedoms come responsibility. Instead they try to sweep this tragic result under the rug.

I suppose in Nehring’s deranged world, he has a point. The right to sleep without being murdered is not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.